Display stands made of cardboard or corrugated board material are commonly used for displaying merchandise. Such display stands have either a flat top or a tray for displaying the merchandise. The top is supported by a base which may be folded over or under the tray for storage or transportation. The base is often attached to or integrally formed with the tray such that the display stand is formed readily when the base is erected. The main drawback of such display stands is that the base must be manually and painstakingly unfolded and erected at the merchandise display location. This,process is often rather awkward and frustrating to carry out due to the stiffness of the cardboard material which renders the base difficult to unfold and to erect.
Attempts have been made to provide a self-erecting base attached to the underside of the merchandise packing tray such that the base can be erected by simply lifting the tray upwards. However, the self-erecting operation of the base of such construction is problematic because the folded base tends to retain its collapsed shape permanently and it could not be unfolded by its self-erecting mechanism. This problem is particularly severe when the folded base is compressed for a relatively lengthy period of time by the weight of the merchandise packed in the tray.